New Custom - Jabba's Palace Guard Fozec

One of the greatest things about Star Wars is all of the looming loser background characters that populated the films. Some of these D-listers did not even have a full screen shot and some just had a few fleeting seconds of being barley visible (usually behind another D-Listers head)! There are some exceptions to these characters as some are quite interesting and would make great figures! Despite the screen time handicap the fine folks at Lucasfilm (in an effort to mine every dime out of these films) decided to give the some of these scrubs names and stories to make them more marketable. I think the most famous of all of the Star Wars back ground characters is the "Ice Cream Maker Guy" Willrow Hood. Hasbro did the unthinkable by actually producing an official  figure of him after years of fans hounding them and pols requesting him. The biggest thanks goes to Scott over at Jedidefender who spearheaded the cause by creating a website that got other fans on board for Willrow. The figure turned out great and is one of my favorite figures in the line, he is great for customs too! Hasbro earned a lot of Nerd cred with this figure and all they asked was for fans to support him at retail. By supporting him it keeps the door open for other really obscure characters that are such an essential part of this line. Fans did keep their end of the deal by supporting the Willrow figure so he did not peg warm like the very awesome but over produced Yarna.

There are still a lot of great back ground bums and beasts to make. One of those characters that is, in my opinion, worthy of an official figure is named Fozec. Fozec is a human guard who works at Jabba's Palace, he also happened to have decent amount of screen time. If you do not know who Fozec is chances are you probably do, if you saw him:

There were rumors at one point that the actor who played Willrow Hood also played Fozec. It was never confirmed and is pretty irrelevant so there is no need to ponder this niche' theory of geekdom. I thought this would be a great figure to make a custom of given my love for all things Jabba. I came up with the idea after thinking about Willrow and decided to use his head for my second Fozec custom. I also had a spare big Thuggee dude from defunct Indiana Jones line, it was a perfect base to create the mighty Fozec. I added some other parts and sculpted the chest/hood armor. I had a hard time finding reference for him so some costume details are a little off. Here is the final result of my Fozec v2, LMK what you guys think:

 

I think Fozec would make a great figure to add to Jabba's growing modern ranks of goons. It's worth noting that he is on Hasbro's radar screen, they had him scheduled in the basic figure line several times but he kept getting bumped out for more prominent characters. They did confirm in a recent Q&A that he will be released some day in the very near future. 2013 may be a good time as it's the 30th Anniversary of ROTJ. (Hasbro if you read this please release a Sail Barge too in that year, I will buy two! I am good for it, look at my collection!)

As always your feedback comments and hate mail are welcome!